What are we doing this week?
Monday
- Intro to reflection & the reflection activities
- Time for missing assignments / quizzes
- Intro to optional quiz rewrite (Tuesday / Wednesday)
- Conversation Menu interviews
Tuesday
- Reflection activities
- Time for missing assignments / quizzes
- Optional quiz rewrite
- Conversation Menu Interviews
Wednesday
- Reflection activities
- Time for missing assignments / quizzes
- Optional quiz rewrite
Thursday
- Summer Getaway: The ELL Heist (puzzles & challenges & prizes)
“A defining condition of being human is that we have to understand the meaning of our experience”
In my opinion, honest reflection is an important part of our educational and personal journey through life. It is for this reason that most of our last week is dedicated to reflecting on our past year. There are many ways to effectively reflect, and so I have chosen a variety of activities for you to choose from. These assignments are not officially for marks, nor will they be marked for completion. With that said, students who choose to use their last week effectively can potentially benefit if their term or overall marks are borderline.
What kind of vocabulary do you use to reflect? Check out Reflection Vocabulary.
In this activity you write a letter to your future self.
- Consider focusing on what you would like your future self to remember about this school year.
- Consider giving advice to your future self.
If you want a more detailed write-up on this activity consider these resources:
Writing a Letter To Your Future Self
In this activity you create a timeline of your school year.
- Consider plotting multiple aspects (fun, difficulty, English language skills, etc.)
- Consider adding notes to yourself or to future students.
- Consider adding important events & your thoughts about them
In this activity you answer a series of questions about your school year.
- 1. In what ways did I effectively immerse myself in the English language this year?
- 2. How did I change as a student this year?
- 3. What will I do differently in the future when I undertake similar studies?
- 4. What are three adjectives that describe my successes this year? What are three adjectives that describe challenges I had this year?
- 5. What am I proud of that I accomplished this year? Why?
- Consider finding and answering questions that you consider meaningful. If the above questions don’t work for you, here are several resources with more examples:
11 End-Of-Year Reflection Questions For Students
25 Self-Reflection Questions To Get Students Thinking About Their Learning
In this activity you write a journal entry (or series of entries) about your school year.
- You are welcome to use your own journal
- Consider ensuring your journal entries are reflective
- Consider some of these prompts:
|
- Consider these different styles of journaling:
The 17 Different Types of Journals that Will Keep Your Life Organized
My Art Journal ~ 5 Creative Bullet Journal Ideas
Instead of a final exam we have a final reflection. You are asked to submit along with an answer key one or more of the following in the form of a fictional final exam:
-
- Vocabulary word
- Short answer questions
- Long answer questions
- Multiple-choice questions
- Diagram questions
- Grammar questions
- Other miscellaneous exam-like questions.
- These contributions should reflect your experience this year.
- These contributions should include an answer key. The key doesn’t need to be factually correct.
- If you include your name with the submission your attribution will be by initials
- I will try to digitize your submissions if possible. The exam will appear on this website and will be later archived.
One important aspect of reflection is its use as a tool for change. In this activity you set goals for your educational future.
- What will I improve?
- How will I make these improvements?
- If my plan doesn’t work, what will I do?
- Consider these other goal-setting activities:
SMART Goal Setting… especially the section, “Developing a SMART Goal”
There are many different types of schools and schooling around the world – even in Canada I can think of many different types of schools. Montessori schools, “traditional” schools, self-directed schools, online schools, vocational schools, outdoor education schools…
Your goal will be to answer this question for your group (2): “What is my ideal school or classroom?” and present your answer to the class.
The project is broken up into several parts:
- Research
- Brainstorming
- Draft
- Presentation
- Reflection
Don’t worry, we’ll help guide you through each part. I will also be completing my own example and posting it to my website along the way. I will also try to provide some links to useful resources on my website.
Here is the timeline for this project:
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Part 1 Research | 6 Part 1/2 Research/Brainstorming | 7 Part 2 Brainstorming | 8 |
| 9 | 10 Part 3 Draft | 11 Part 3 Draft | 12 Part 3 Draft | 13 Part 4/5 Presentation/Reflection | 14 Part 5 Reflection | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 |
Here is the rubric used to self-assess your performance on this project:
| Categories & Expectations | Beginning | Developing | Expanding | Exemplar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research
Good, old fashioned research. Or, if you want, you can do less research and spend some time writing about a smaller group of sources. |
“My research can be seen only in my final presentation.” | “I have the URL’s of a few websites I went to and I can tell you about them.” | “I have proof of a reasonable amount of research (notes, key vocabulary, bibliography)” or “I have a few notes which show my understanding of the material.” | “I have completed extensive research” or “I have spent time writing about the ideas I found in my research.” |
| Brainstorming
If you wrote your ideas down, you can refer back to them to re-inspire work on your project. |
“I thought of several ideas for my ideal school or classroom but didn’t write them down.” | “I have some proof that I did some basic brainstorming such as a small ‘mind map’ or a bullet points.” | “I have proof of an extensive ‘mind map’ or other kinds of notes, possibly including sketches of what my school or classroom will look like.” | “I have proof of extensive brainstorming in one or more forms, possibly including sketches of what my school or classroom will look like.” |
| Draft
Consider keeping older versions of your work in order to have evidence of your project’s growth. |
“I didn’t create a draft, but I edited a few things along the way.” | “My partner and I edited our work together to make it seamless.” | “I revised my work in order to ensure it was the best it could be.” | “I sought out feedback and incorporated it into my project. I made sure my work and my partner’s worked well together.” |
| Presentation
Your contribution to presenting the answer to the question, “What is your ideal school or classroom?” |
“Preparation was lacking but I gave it a shot!” | “I prepared but my portion of the presentation didn’t make a lot of sense. I had trouble connecting back to the main question.” | “I did a decent job answering the main question. I was organized. My presentation could have connected better with my partner.” | “I had an excellent presentation with strong organization while thoroughly answering the main question. I wish I went to my ideal school!” |
| Reflection
Based on the way you answered the reflection questions from part 5. |
Reflection Questions are incomplete. Little effort was expended. | Reflection Questions are complete. Little effort was expended. | Reflection Questions are complete. There is a reasonable level of reflection in most answers. | Reflection Questions are thoroughly completed. A high level of reflection is evident in all answers. |
In order to prepare yourself to answer the question, “What is my ideal school or classroom?” You should consider researching the following areas:
- Research the types of schools and the types of teaching/learning involved.
- Research the architecture of schools and/or classrooms.
Question: How can I demonstrate that I have done the necessary research?
- Identify and Define key vocabulary (ie. Montessori School, Outdoor Education etc.)
- Bibliography / Website List
- Take notes with topic headings (ie. “Types of Schools”, “Interesting Architecture”) and consider the important questions (Who, What, When, Where, Why?)
Youtube Videos:
13 Most Innovative Schools You’ll Want to Attend
A different class: how innovative design is revolutionising traditional classrooms – learning world
Architecture:
17 of the most beautiful schools around the world
TOP 10 schools and educational buildings of 2018 (there are excellent follow up links to each of the buildings)
The Architecture of Ideal Learning Environments
Local Interesting Schools:
Brainstorming is “group discussion to produce ideas or solve problems.” In this case you are trying to come up with ideas that answer the question, “What is my ideal school or classroom?”
The expectation in this project is that you find a way to record your brainstorming discussion. Examples of brainstorming are available in the “resources” section.
To summarize: there are many ways to do this from a wordweb/mindmap or other visual organizers, taking notes or lists… even recording audio! Many of the ideas that come out of your brainstorm can be dismissed or edited out, and if you have trouble incorporating your ideas into your final presentation, you have other ideas to fall back on.
You are also expected to brainstorm the way your school looks. Describe what it looks like, draw a floor map, or sketch its exterior.
Here is my example brainstorm which I will be using to create my draft presentation:
Brainstorming:
How to Brainstorm: 5 Ways to Get the Creative Juices Flowing
Brainstorm and Explore Topics: Brainstorming (examples)
Imagining your ideal school (if you want subcategories for your brainstorm!)
Creating a floor plan:
It’s time to create our PowerPoint or poster presentations. Keep in mind the scope of our presentations: minimum 2 minutes to 5 minutes maximum.
| Optional: Consider taking on specific roles for your project. If one of you can arrange the images and the other can write the content for example, you could complete your project more efficiently. Similarly you can decide who will present each slide. |
Here I give suggestions for how to reorganize your brainstorm into a short presentation:
Here is my example “storyboard” which can be considered a first draft of my presentation’s slides:
Short But Effective Presentations
How To Make Short Presentations Effective
7 Things to Do When You Have to Give a Short Speech
Beyond the Scope of This Presentation
It’s time to create our PowerPoint or poster presentations. Keep in mind the scope of our presentations: minimum 2 minutes to 5 minutes maximum. See Part 3 for resources meant to help you keep your presentation short and effective.
| Practice: Consider doing a practice run before your final presentation. I usually ask a family member or friend to listen to my presentation and provide constructive feedback, or I speak my presentation aloud to see where I feel confident and where I feel less confident or trip over my words. It is important to take your feedback or self-reflection and change your presentation where needed (or keep practicing!).
Another important aspect to practice is your ability to time yourself. If your presentation has a suggested time limit you can time your practice presentation to see how it aligns with your goal. |
Here I practice my sample presentation:
Things I learned from my practice presentation:
- I have too much content for a two-minute presentation. I can cut out some of the content or ignore some parts of my slides. I could also slow down and allow the presentation to be longer.
- I felt more confident about blended learning and distributed learning than the science-based and continually evolving slides.
- I may need to rethink how I am going to present the science-based slide.
Link to the: Sample Presentation
In this final section we self-assess our project and presentation. We also complete a series of reflection questions. Hard copies both will be available in class.
Reflecting helps you to develop your skills and review their effectiveness, rather than just carry on doing things as you have always done them. It is about questioning, in a positive way, what you do and why you do it and then deciding whether there is a better, or more efficient, way of doing it in the future. In any role, whether at home or at work, reflection is an important part of learning. You wouldn’t use a recipe a second time around if the dish didn’t work the first time would you? You would either adjust the recipe or find a new and, hopefully, better one. When we learn we can become stuck in a routine that may not be working effectively. Thinking about your own skills can help you identify changes you might need to make.The Open University and Unison in Partnership
Self-Assessment
Please circle the column that best describes your self-assessment for each category. Be honest! This will not effect your mark, but if it does not roughly align with what I perceive, we will have to have a one-on-one conversation.
| Categories & Expectations | Beginning | Developing | Expanding | Exemplar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research
Good, old fashioned research. Or, if you want, you can do less research and spend some time writing about a smaller group of sources. |
“My research can be seen only in my final presentation.” | “I have the URL’s of a few websites I went to and I can tell you about them.” | “I have proof of a reasonable amount of research (notes, key vocabulary, bibliography)” or “I have a few notes which show my understanding of the material.” | “I have completed extensive research” or “I have spent time writing about the ideas I found in my research.” |
| Brainstorming
If you wrote your ideas down, you can refer back to them to re-inspire work on your project. |
“I thought of several ideas for my ideal school or classroom but didn’t write them down.” | “I have some proof that I did some basic brainstorming such as a small ‘mind map’ or a bullet points.” | “I have proof of an extensive ‘mind map’ or other kinds of notes, possibly including sketches of what my school or classroom will look like.” | “I have proof of extensive brainstorming in one or more forms, possibly including sketches of what my school or classroom will look like.” |
| Draft
Consider keeping older versions of your work in order to have evidence of your project’s growth. |
“I didn’t create a draft, but I edited a few things along the way.” | “My partner and I edited our work together to make it seamless.” | “I revised my work in order to ensure it was the best it could be.” | “I sought out feedback and incorporated it into my project. I made sure my work and my partner’s worked well together.” |
| Presentation
Your contribution to presenting the answer to the question, “What is your ideal school or classroom?” |
“Preparation was lacking but I gave it a shot!” | “I prepared but my portion of the presentation didn’t make a lot of sense. I had trouble connecting back to the main question.” | “I did a decent job answering the main question. I was organized. My presentation could have connected better with my partner.” | “I had an excellent presentation with strong organization while thoroughly answering the main question. I wish I went to my ideal school!” |
| Reflection
Based on the way you answered the reflection questions from part 5. |
Reflection Questions are incomplete. Little effort was expended. | Reflection Questions are complete. Little effort was expended. | Reflection Questions are complete. There is a reasonable level of reflection in most answers. | Reflection Questions are thoroughly completed. A high level of reflection is evident in all answers. |
Reflection Questions
These reflection questions are broken up into two categories. The first three questions refer to the process of creating and presenting, the second three questions are about the content of your “ideal school.” There is also an optional final question which asks for project feedback.
Please answer the following questions in full sentences:
Have you ever sat in awkward silence unsure of what to say? I know I have, but never again! With this simple solution you can start a conversation with anyone!
FAQ:
What did I just watch?
A comedy sketch by the British comedy group Monty Python filmed sometime in the 1970s or 80s…
What happened?
Instead of being served food, the customers were served “conversation.”
Why did I just watch that?
Because you are going to make a conversation menu, then have a quick conversation with me!
Here’s a video exemplar of the activity:
And finally, here’s the sample menu. Feel free to use the paper copy provided, or edit this one on your phone (provided you have video editing software):
